Alternate History Of The Legal Drinking Age (Updated)

PART ONE

Recently I had been thinking a lot about alternate histories and alternate universes in regards to the 21 drinking age.  That is what would have happened if X, Y, or Z had changed but leaving everything else constant?  Here is what I came up with (updated) for the alternate timeline:

TL;DR:  NEVER ASK 57% of Michiganders what they voted for in November 1978!

Michigan, as we know, was the first state (and therefore the most influential one) to raise the drinking age back to 21, in 1978.  They did it by a constitutional amendment ballot initiative on November 7, 1978, effective December 22, 1978, just in time for the holidays of course.  Earlier that same year, the state legislature had grudgingly passed, and Governor Milliken grudgingly signed, a bill to raise the drinking age to 19 for a three year trial period to study its effects, and then sunset it back to 18.  That would have taken at least some of the wind out of the sails of the still-nascent movement to raise the drinking age further, that is, had the ballot initiative not passed.  But that initiative got only 57% of the vote, which was hardly a landslide.  And while that particular initiative (like initiatives and referenda in most states) only required a simple majority to pass (a pitifully low bar to literally change the constitution at all, let alone to do so in a way that abridges civil rights), there are nonetheless three states that require a higher supermajority threshold (such as 60% in Florida) to alter a state constitution by popular vote.

Most states (all but three) currently require only a simple majority vote for a state constitutional amendment by initiative or referendum. The three states that require a supermajority for constitutional amendments: Colorado (55%), Florida (60%), and New Hampshire (67%).

So one way to have stopped that very first domino from falling would have been to somehow raise the threshold for altering Michigan's constitution by ballot initiative to 60% sometime prior to 1978.  Alternatively, had Michigan stuck with their original 1933 law to set the drinking age at 18 for beer and 21 for wine and hard liquor, and not raised it to 21 across the board in 1937 like they did, they would have been more like their neighbor Wisconsin, who eventually lowered it to 18 across the board in 1972 when they lowered the age of majority.  Just like Michigan would have done either way in 1972.  Thus, because of their history, there would have been far less appetite among Michiganders to raise it to 21 in 1978 had that been the case, and would probably have fallen short of even a 50%-plus-one threshold in that case.  Either way, the 1978 attempt to raise the drinking age to 21 would have flopped, even if only narrowly.

OK, so what would have happened next, had that fateful ballot initiative failed in November 1978?  Well, here are what things I think would have been most likely to occur, per the domino theory:

Michigan's drinking age hike to 19 would have gone into effect as planned on December 3, 1978, and then three years later in December 1981, it would have reverted back to 18 in time for the holidays.  The same celebrated decline in traffic fatalities would have most likely occurred either way due to factors other than the drinking age (including the famous bottle deposit raising the prices of beer).  In both timelines, the bottle deposit literally went into effect on the same day as the 19 drinking age!

(Also, unlike in the current timeline where the beer tax still has not been raised since 1966 (60 years ago!), the alternate timeline does include a few fairly modest beer (and also wine and liquor) tax hikes over the decades, including sometime during the crucial years of the late 1970s and very early 1980s.  For best results, let's make it 1978 for the first tax hike, especially for hard liquor.)

Disheartened by their failure in Michigan, the nascent movement to raise the drinking age to 21 would have lost momentum very quickly.  Thus, at least the other three of the first four states to raise it back to 21 would have most likely relented and not done so, and ditto for those after that. And no further states would have raised it to 20 either.

Massachusetts would have chosen the "Michigan Model" and raised it to 19 in 1979, with a sunset clause after a few years, instead of 20.  And since they wouldn't raise it to 20, New Hampshire doesn't do so either.  They either keep it 18 or raise it to 19.  And while Rhode Island raises it to 19 in 1980, they do not raise it further in the alternate history.

New Jersey possibly still raises it to 19 in 1979 (effective January 1, 1980), but in this version of events, they add a three-year sunset clause if they do, inspired by Michigan.  (More on NJ later, we will get back to this soon as this is highly significant later on).

But much more likely NJ sticks with a flavor of a compromise idea that almost passed but failed in our timeline:  keeping it 18, but delaying purchases until July 1 of the year that one turns 18 if one's birthday is earlier than that (either for all purchases, or better yet, for only off-premise purchases), to help keep it out of the high schools. Passed sometime in July or August of 1979, the impact is not immediate, but is somewhat noticeable in 1980.  Let's stick with that one for now.  Many other states ultimately follow suit, instead of going with 19 or 20.  

(This came to be called the "July 1st Rule.")

Illinois would have instead kept it at 19 for beer/wine and 21 for liquor, instead of raising it to 21 effective in 1980.

Pennsylvania's otherwise ill-fated attempt at lowering it from 21 to 19 in 1978 does NOT die in the legislature in November, but continues to be debated on and is finally voted on sometime in 1979, when inspired by Michigan and New Jersey, narrowly votes yes and lowers it to 19, at least for beer if not all alcohol (but, facilitated by their already wonky liquor laws, keeps it 21 for larger quantities like kegs and cases for the time being, with the 192 ounce rule applied to those under 21).  This was the last chance while the zeitgeist still remained relatively permissive, before it switched to restrictive.

Meanwhile, out west, at least some of the states that had kept it 21 since the end of Prohibition, especially California and Nevada, decided to lower it to 19 by the end of 1979, following PA's lead, and also "study" its effects for a few years.  There already seems to be a convergence towards 19, and many still maintaining at 18 (with or without the July 1st Rule).  And we aren't even out of the 1970s yet.

"Give 19 a chance!" becomes the new slogan.  And of course, Ontario, Canada also raises it to 19 as well in 1979, in both versions of events.  They of course had a more pressing reason to raise it:  the fact that their high schools still had 13th grade at the time (until 2003, when it was abolished).

The Overton Window has clearly shifted.  And the by now famous Dr. Richard Zylman, Professor at the Center for Alcohol Studies at Rutgers, is vindicated in his successful debunking of the pro-21 crowd's specious studies and talking points.  People are now finally listening to him for once!

Next, several other states that would have raised to 19 in 1979-1981, such as Florida, either keep it 18 (with or without the July 1st Rule) or raise it to 19 with a sunset clause.  Texas definitely keeps it 18, as no one tells Texas what to do!  Florida is nonetheless cool with 19 though, since Spring Break tourists are nearly all over 19 anyway.

Virginia, in both versions of events, passes a compromise bill to raise it to 19 for off-premise purchases but keep it 18 for on-premise purchases in July 1981.  And unlike in the current timeline, they never raise it any further.  Their neighbor Maryland, who otherwise would have raised it to 21 in 1982, decides to "give 19 a chance" and adopt the "Virginia Model" instead.  After all, since the Michigan and Illinois failed to raise it to 21 in this alternate history, Maryland never works up the appetite to do so themselves.  That's now three dominoes averted so far.

By 1982, other states start to think that Virginia has nailed the best compromise thus far (or alternatively, they adopt the July 1st Rule). And Minnesota, the very first state to raise their drinking age to 19 (in 1976) is the very next to adopt the "Virginia Model".

Connecticut, who previously almost passed something like Virginia did but it got vetoed due to constitutional concerns, decides to try again following Virginia, with a new governor this time. It passes, and ultimately prevents the current timeline's age hike to a flat 19 (and then 20 and then 21) by taking the wind out of the sails.

The 1982 Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving convenes, but in the alternate timeline, Dr. Richard Zylman is one of the members.  When recommendation #8 out of 39 comes up, i.e. setting a national uniform drinking age of 21, Zylman quickly and openly pours cold water on that idea, and Dr. Morris Chafetz gets the courage to speak up and also refute that.  The idea gets scrapped, and Candy Lightner eats crow and gives up on that idea.  That recommendation gets replaced with a national uniform drinking age of 18 instead.

In 1982, New York narrowly decides against raising their drinking age to 19 in the alternate history.  The appetite to raise it simply was not there in the alternate version of events.  Especially since their drinking age has been 18 since 1934, and thus the status quo bias was quite strong.  (They might do a "July 1st Rule" though, but even that is iffy there.)

Meanwhile, New Jersey decides to let the 19 drinking age lapse and revert back to 18 on January 1, 1983.  (Alternatively, if they went with the aforementioned "July 1st Rule" in 1979 instead of 19, nothing changes.)  In the version of events that actually happened, of course, NJ raises it to 21 effective on that same date.  This was probably the most important domino of them all to avert, as most of the loudest voices for the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, such as Senator Frank Lautenberg who wrote it, were from.....wait for it....New Jersey.  Thus, even more wind taken out of the sails of the pro-21 movement and the windbags in charge of it.  And the gambling age in Atlantic City remains at 18 (the only reason they raised it to 21 in the current version of events a few months later in 1983 was because it would have been extremely difficult to enforce the new drinking age of 21).  And not coincidentally, the number and extent of "blood borders" began to greatly shrink, as opposed to grow like it does in the current version of events.

Later in 1983, Oklahoma and Alaska thus decide to NOT raise it to 21 and keep it at 18 and 19, respectively.  And when Alaska hikes their beer tax dramatically that same year, which happens in both versions of events, traffic fatalities plummet either way.  That influences other states (and the feds too) to raise their alcohol taxes in 1984-1985 and beyond, to a greater extent in the alternate version of events (since the non-existent drinking age hike obviously couldn't speciously take credit for the drop in crash deaths in Alaska).

OK, so what about MADD?  Well, they start out the same way in 1980, and briefly advocate for raising the drinking age to 21 starting in 1982-1983.  But since the appetite for it just isn't there anymore by then, they grudgingly and quietly put that issue the back burner where it has been simmering ever since, and basically become more akin to MADD Canada in that regard.  Founder Candy Lightner still has a falling out with MADD in the mid-1980s, and is thus forced to resign in either version of events, for reasons unrelated to the drinking age.

(And in any case, they were unable to convince President Reagan on the supposed merits of the 21 drinking age.  The idea is now dead in the water, much like it was, and still is, in Canada.)

Having NOT been swayed, the other major anti-drunk driving group, Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID), in the alternate history does NOT end up supporting the 21 drinking age, preferring to focus solely on drunk driving, for all ages, period.  The Overton Window simply will not allow it anymore.

In New York, no attempt to raise the drinking age higher than 18 (where it remains to this day) ever succeeds in the alternate version of events.  NONE.  Not in 1982, not in 1985, NOT EVER.  Capisce?  But ever since their founding in 1981, their legendary STOP-DWI program of drunk driving enforcement (later expanded to include ALL forms of reckless and dangerous driving as well) continues to successfully target the actual problem, and thus becomes a model for the nation.

New Jersey decides to follow New York's lead in 1983, and also makes their road test much more difficult as well.  The whole "Jersey Driver" thing ultimately becomes a thing of the past, at least for the most part.  And when future generations hear such jokes about them being such horrible drivers, the most common response is, "I don't get it".

With the "quick fix" of raising the drinking age to 21 now largely off the table, more and more states pass tougher DUI laws, faster and tougher in the alternate version of events, and crack down harder on drunk driving for all ages.  Alcohol-related traffic casualties plummet as a result, even faster than they did in the current version of events.

Vermont and Louisiana famously keep holding the line at "18 and not a day higher!" in both versions of events, and several more states and DC join them.  In the alternate timeline, they only need to stick it out a few more years tops before they are home free for good.

In 1984-1985, the feds decide to not only NOT coerce states to raise their drinking ages to 21, but after reading the studies by Colon and Cutter (1983) and Colon (1984), actually does the opposite and uses positive reinforcement to nudge states with higher age limits to reduce them to 18 or 19 to reduce or eliminate any remaining "blood borders".  That is, give states an extra 10% of federal highway funding per year for ten years for reducing (or maintaining) their drinking ages to 18, or 5% per year for five years for reducing (or maintaining) it to 19.  And if the 12 states that didn't lower it from 21 in the 1970s didn't end up lowering it by then, they sure would after that!  Yes, even Utah grudgingly lowers it to 19 for 3.2 beer at least.  And much like the lowering of the tobacco purchase/sale age in the 1950s through the 1970s, an increasingly frequent rationale given (at least publicly) was to "ensure stricter enforcement".

(The feds also decide to make drunk driving across state lines a federal crime as well.  Initially, the BAC limit is set at 0.10%, but is quickly lowered to 0.08% to match Canada.  States that lower their limits to 0.08% are soon rewarded with extra highway funding.  And thus, that becomes the standard in every state much, much sooner in the alternate version of events than in the current version.)

The legendary Peter Asch and David Levy's groundbreaking 1987 study also further confirms what the anti-21 folks have known all along:  the 21 drinking age is useless at best, and more like worse than useless.  The anti-21 side is fully vindicated now, and the pro-21 side is thoroughly discredited.  And their subsequent 1990 study does so a fortiori.

And by the end of the decade, all states are either 18 or 19 depending on the state, much like Canada.  And it remains that way from then onwards.  And eventually, 18 becomes more common than 19.  The remnants of the pro-21 crowd keep trying to raise it for a while into the 1990s, but they eventually give up and swallow their pride, along with their beer when they are finally done crying in it!

And like Canada and Australia, drunk driving laws and enforcement continues to get tougher over time, and casualties continue to fall.  As for Zero Tolerance laws for DUI, starting in the 1990s, many of the same laws are passed in both versions of events.  Some are based on age, like Puerto Rico, some Canadian provinces, and some countries, while others are based on how long one has had their driver's license, like other Canadian provinces and Australian states.  And some are based on both.  The most common such laws in the alternate version of events are 0.00 to 0.02 BAC for the first three years of licensed driving or until 21, whichever is longer.  But the stated purpose is now different:  it's not because "you're too young!" and "it's illegal!", but rather because people should gain more experience with both driving as well as drinking before being allowed to mix the two, even in small amounts.  The goal is to separate drinking from driving entirely.

Drunk driving casualties for young and old alike continue to plummet even further, now reaching an all-time record low by the mid-1990s.  And they continue to fall after that as well, rather than stubbornly stall and stagnate like in the current timeline.

And while only Utah ultimately lowers their criminal BAC limit down to 0.05% from 0.08%, that doesn't stop many states from experimenting with Canadian-style brief administrative license suspensions and brief vehicle impoundments for drivers above 0.05%, albeit as a traffic violation. 

And while truly "random breath testing" (RBT) still remains unconstitutional to this day in the USA in both versions of events, that really just means that enforcement needs to be a bit more creative with sobriety checkpoints and roving/saturation patrols to approximate its effect.  The tools already exist (at least in the states that choose to allow them).  The real key is for such enforcement to be sustained, and create the perception of swift and certain punishment.  And in the alternate version of events, that is precisely what happens.

They even make a popular reality TV show out of it!  Called "Operation Rovin' Eyes", and complete with ride-alongs, it was an instant success.  It's birthplace was (where else?) New York, the ultimate pioneering state against drunk driving, and it has expanded to many other states from there. Legend has it, it was inspired by the Australian reality show "RBT", but it most likely pre-dated that show.

"Rovin' Eyes....are watching YOU!!!"

Alcohol taxes are raised more frequently and to a greater extent in the alternate version of events, albeit still not quite as high as Canada or Australia. 

Enforcement of the 18 (or 19, or mixed, depending on the state) drinking age over time has evolved to be quite strict, but primarily targeting the sellers of alcohol.  In fact, part of the reason why the former 21 age states lowered it was to "ensure stricter enforcement".  And underage drinking itself is almost everywhere decriminalized to a parking-style or traffic-style ticket offense, with no jail and no criminal record.

Hawaii's meth epidemic in the 1990s, while it still happens unfortunately, is at least somewhat blunted by keeping the drinking age at 18. 

In the alternate version of events, research, science, public policy, politics, and culture all remain far less warped than they would have become in the current version of events.  And states truly remain "laboratories of democracy," while being careful to avoid "tyranny of the majority" or mob rule as well (like what almost happened in Michigan in 1978!)

Fast forward to the 2020s:

"Tobacco 21?  What's that?  Never heard of it." (In other words, smoking and vaping ages remain 18, or in a vanishingly tiny few states and localities, 19.  Needham, MA doesn't even bother.)

It literally never even occurs to Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York to raise the smoking age to 21, especially since his father gave up after failing to the get the drinking age raised any higher than 18.  Similarly, Mayors Mike Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio of NYC never bothered to do so either.

Cannabis is legalized in much the same way as in the current version of events, but with one crucial detail different:  all states that legalize it choose 18 or 19 as their toking ages instead of 21, typically choosing to match their drinking and/or tobacco smoking ages.  And also, a greater number of states legalize it in the alternate version, including Hawaii after finally calling off their abominable Operation Green Harvest eradication and  interdiction program, and ultimately the federal government does the same.  Even Florida finally ends up doing so, when the ballot referendum gets over the necessary 60% of the vote to pass.

As for other countries, some differences can be seen there as well due to America's influence.  Take Canada, for example.  Ontario, shortly after abolishing 13th grade in 2003, decides to lower their drinking age from 19 back to 18, and when they legalize weed in 2018, they choose 18 for that as well.  Prince Edward Island never raises their drinking age from 18 to 19, and never adopts a Tobacco 21 law.  Saskatchewan eventually lowers their drinking age and cannabis age to 18 to match their neighbors.  Quebec keeps their age limit for cannabis at its original 18, and never raises it to 21.  Otherwise, Canada remains the same in both versions of events.

Japan lowers their drinking age and smoking age to 18 when they lower their age of majority to 18 in 2022.  And they at least end up considering legalizing weed at some point as well.

And Lithuania keeps their drinking age at 18, refusing to raise it to 20 in 2018.  Ditto for Sri Lanka, who keeps it at 18 instead of raising it to 21 in 2006.

Can you say, "Butterfly Effect?"

Oh, and by the way:  alcohol-related death rates, both on and off the highways, are really not very different between the two versions of events, at least in the long run.  In fact, they are most likely lower in the alternate version of events.  Ditto for alcohol-related problems in general as well.

NOTE:  Another pathway to this alternate timeline could have been if Minnesota had decided NOT to raise the drinking age from 18 to 19 in 1976.  They were the very first state to raise it from 18, so they likely influenced other states after that.  Alternatively, as their stated goal was simply to keep alcohol out of the high schools, they could have chosen to do something similar to what Virginia did five years later, namely, raise only the off-premise purchase age to 19 and keep it 18 otherwise.  Or they could have chosen the aforementioned "July 1st Rule", which would be even more surgical.  Additionally, another pathway could have been if at least some of the 12 states that kept it 21 throughout had decided to lower it to 18 or 19 in the early 1970s along with the age of majority, especially the highly influential states of California and Pennsylvania.

PART TWO

Previously, we explored what an alternate timeline would have looked like if the drinking age was NOT raised to 21 in the 1980s.  The most critical point in preventing that from happening in that timeline was Michigan (the first domino) NOT raising it to 21 in 1978.  And the result?  The Overton window did NOT shift in favor of 21, and with most states choosing to keep it at 18 or 19 depending on the state, the feds did NOT force or coerced and states to raise their drinking ages.  If anything, the feds used positive reinforcement to get the Dirty Dozen states that were 21 since the 1930s and 1940s to lower their drinking ages, and by the end of the 1980s, all states except Utah were either 18 or 19 depending on the state.  Some states had a split 18/19 age limit for different beverage types (i.e. beer vs wine vs liquor), while some others had a split 18/19 age limit for on-premise vs. off-premise purchases, or more often, limits on quantities and/or hours of sale for off-premise purchases if under 19, but otherwise set at 18.  The most common was states who set it at 18 across the board, but allowed "local option" to set it 19 for off-premise purchases and/or quantity limits, though some of the 18 states chose to preempt even that on principle.  (The higher age limit in states with graduated age limits was often called the "No Trickle-Down Law" or the "No Gray Market Law".)

Alternatively, many states and localities chose a "July 1st Rule", where the drinking age is 18 across the board, except that off-premise purchases are delayed until July 1st of the year one turns 18 if one's birthday is earlier than that.  And in many states and especially localities, that still exists.

A few states chose to keep it (or raise it to) 20 or 21 for very large quantities (kegs or multiple cases or multiple handles bought in the same transaction or same day), but those states were in the minority.  Many states did so temporarily in the 1980s, but most of them simply let it lapse eventually.  But Pennsylvania would almost certainly continue.  And it was not unusual for local laws to keep it.

Even Utah, the strictest state of all for obvious reasons, held their collective noses and grudgingly lowered their drinking age to 19 for weak beer and 21 for everything else by 1990, and then briefly 19/20, then finally a flat 19 across the board (except kegs) sometime during the 1990s.  Though they still retained their other bizarre and Byzantine liquor laws all the same in both timelines, of course.

So what would the 2020s look like in greater detail in this alternate timeline of events?

• Tobacco and nicotine age limits would remain at 18 in all but a very few states which are 19.  But many states choose to put a reasonable cap on the quantities that 18-20 year olds can purchase (per transaction, and only one transaction per day), to discourage them from giving or selling to their friends under 18.
• Cannabis is legalized in mostly the same states in both timelines (though a somewhat greater number of states do so in the alternate timeline), but all who do so choose 18 or 19 as their age limits, nearly always matching their drinking and smoking ages.  And like tobacco, most states choose to limit the quantities that 18-20 year olds can purchase per transaction and per day, and for the same reasons.
• And the federal government FINALLY gets around to legalizing it as well by 2024 if not sooner, with a federal age limit of 18 for cannabis sales (but no limit for use or possession) to match the tobacco sales age limit that still remains in effect.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, Firearms, and Explosives and the FDA both have joint (pun intended) authority to enforce it on vendors.
• Alcohol taxes (and prices) in the USA are somewhat higher as a rule in the alternate timeline, though still not nearly as high as in Canada.  Thus, in nearly all states, the typical six-pack of beer costs about a dollar or two more in 2025 dollars.  Likewise, the typical gallon of wine and the average liter of hard liquor also costs an extra dollar or two more in the alternate timeline.  Some states also experiment with "minimum unit pricing" (MUP) as well, but most states still only prohibit selling "below cost."
• In 2019, instead of raising the tobacco sales age to 21, which there is virtually zero appetite for, the feds instead decided to implement the Mark Kleiman's idea to raise the federal cigarette and other combustible tobacco taxes to $5/pack or the equivalent amount of tobacco, BUT allowing states and localities to fully rebate it against their own tobacco-specific taxes.  Result?  Low-tax states states raise and largely equalize their taxes with high-tax ones, smoking rates plummet for all ages (especially among youth), and the interstate smuggling black market dries up.  Win-win-win for everyone except Big Tobacco and their sycophantic lackeys.
• Vaping products have their nicotine levels capped by the FDA at the same levels as the EU, UK, and Israel, most flavors are banned, and ingredients are better regulated as of 2019.  The "vaping epidemic" slows to a crawl.
• The drinking age of 18 (or 19, or split) is very strictly enforced on vendors and servers.  For young drinkers themselves, underage drinking is illegal but decriminalized in nearly every state by now.  It is typically treated like a minor traffic violation or parking ticket.
• While a few bars and clubs here and there set their own age limits of 21 or higher to enter, such examples remain few and far between, and are looked upon with disdain by most Americans. And for places like Dave and Busters, or really any other businesses for that matter, it would literally never even occur to the managers to set any age limits higher than 18, if even that high at all.  Such baseless age segregation remains well outside the Overton window in the alternate timeline.
• Without that specious quick fix in their toolkit, they instead implement a zero tolerance policy for fighting, vandalism, theft, and disorderly conduct of any kind, strictly enforced.  And they are NOT KIDDING!
• It remains rare for any hotels or motels to refuse anyone over 18 due to age.  Ditto for most cruise ships as well.
• Drunk driving is taken very, very seriously for people of all ages, and increasingly tough laws are increasingly strictly enforced.  The same goes for drug-impaired driving as well.
• Most states by now set the BAC limit at 0.05%, but anything below 0.08% is usually a traffic violation instead of a criminal offense.  (New York only has to add two words, per se, to their existing but currently underappreciated 0.05% law, by the way.).  And Zero Tolerance laws exist as well, albeit usually based on how long one has had their driver's license rather than age alone.  And for ALL drivers, the limit is now 0.00% if one is driving recklessly.
• Social host liability laws, while existing in some places in limited form, never really seem to catch on in most of the USA.  Most people think such laws are insane and un-American in the alternate timeline.
• The combination of the lack of a 21 drinking age and lack of social host laws results in somewhat more in-person socialization between young people, and between generations, in the alternate timeline compared to the current timeline.
• Block parties make a comeback, or more accurately, never really went away.
• Helicopter parenting, while it still exists, tends to be at least somewhat less extreme.
• Community pubs will become more common.
• America is still very much a car culture either way, but "safe rider" programs are far more common in the alternate timeline.  And slowly but surely, at least some improvements are finally being made in public transportation.
• America's drinking culture still leaves a lot to be desired, much like in the rest of the Anglosphere, but over time it becomes at least somewhat healthier and less extreme overall.
• Certainly the college drinking culture is much safer and healthier in the alternate timeline, even though it is often just as wild.  The wildness peaks during and shortly after "frosh week" at the beginning of freshman year, getting it largely out of their systems early on, after which students tend to buckle down and study a bit more and keep the partying in it's proper place in their list of priorities, certainly by the time midterms roll around. Especially since all of the major universities have finally decided to tackle the grade inflation that had been building for decades.
• Many colleges and universities even have bars and pubs on campus, sometimes even in the dorms.
• Fraternities and sororities, while they still exist, largely wither on the vine as they have become increasingly obsolete, except for the more academic and service-oriented ones.
• High school, contrary to what some may fear, is NOT radically different between the two timelines, and in many ways improved.  Drinking and "binge" drinking rates are both at most a couple of percentage points higher (if at all) in the alternate timeline for grade 12, mostly due to greater honesty in surveys (which are always taken with at least a grain of salt in the alternate timeline).  They may drink slightly more frequently, but the less they do when they do on average.  For earlier grades, the difference is practically negligible.  And differences in cannabis use rates are also practically negligible in all grades, while tobacco and nicotine use rates are actually lower in the alternate timeline.
• And no, there is NO practical difference in "liquid lunches" among high school students between the two timelines.  By now, the drinking age (regardless of what it is) is VERY strictly enforced in that regard, and K-12 school grounds are strictly "dry" for all ages.  (This is still the USA, not Denmark, after all!)
• Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic still happens, and so do the lockdowns and related restrictions.  But such restrictions generally tend to be somewhat briefer and somewhat less extreme in the alternate timeline, as America has still not been quite as afflicted by "safetyism" as in the current timeline.  Not much change either way in the case and death rates regardless, though.  Turns out, as the saying goes, virus gonna virus, and humans gonna human.  
• And in the alternate timeline, since the 1980s we as a society have clearly fallen out of love with the "illusion of control", to the extent that we ever even really loved it at all.  That has got to be the single most defining feature that differs between the two timelines.
• Traffic death rates, both alcohol-related and otherwise, are actually rather lower in the alternate timeline compared to the current one, both among youth and adults alike.  And the relative decrease in feelings of alienation and loneliness among younger people leads to at least somewhat fewer suicides and mass shootings as well.
• IF Donald Trump still gets elected President in 2016*, and that is a VERY big "if", in 2024 he certainly ends up narrowly losing to Kamala Harris instead of narrowly winning, both by popular vote as well as the Electoral College.  That is because America's loneliness epidemic and feelings of alienation among younger Americans, especially young men, while still persistent, is at least marginally less pronounced in the alternate timeline, and the fence-sitters were less likely to be swayed towards Trump.  (And Trump's second failed coup attempt in January 2025 fails even more than it did on January 6th, 2021, as he is largely greeted by crickets this time around, and he ultimately ends up in prison where he belongs.)  It turns out the age-segregation effects of the 21 drinking age (and its ancillary laws and policies) in the current timeline were much more far-reaching than anyone could have predicted.  
• And the rest is history.  And the beat goes on.....

And America shall once again become the "shining city on a hill" that we were meant to be all along.  An America to be truly proud of.  If only we were in that alternate timeline.

*P.S.  Ideally the DNC would NOT have totally screwed over Bernie Sanders, and he could have beaten Trump in 2016.  That, and the Democratic Party establishment would not have eaten its young either.  After all, Trump was literally supposed to lose, by design.  But that, of course, would have probably been yet another alternate timeline, albeit one that is largely the same as the one discussed above, but perhaps with a few more subtle differences added on.  Also, perhaps the voting age would have been lowered to 16 as a result of a greater focus on youth rights in general, and would have the same effect on preventing Trump's reelection as it successfully prevented Bolsonaro's reelection in Brazil.

P.P.S.  Of course, had Jimmy Carter been re-elected in 1980 instead of Reagan, America would now REALLY be more like Canada in so many ways, only better, having dodged the very worst of neoliberalism and all of that nonsense.  And Carter could have pulled it off had he not screwed up in the presidential debate less than two weeks before the election, as he was well ahead in the polls just before the debate.  But it was far more parsimonious to simply leave the 1980 election unchanged in the above alternate timeline, with Reagan as the winner, so as to isolate the drinking age as the variable of interest, unconfounded by that very pivotal and fateful election.  Regardless, had Michigan failed to raise the drinking age to 21 in 1978, either way, it would have been extremely unlikely that either Reagan or Carter would have ever been swayed (let alone gung-ho) in that direction.

Alcohol Retreats, Cannabis Advances. Even In Alberta, Where Both Are Legal At 18

Once again, we see that alcohol retreats, while cannabis advances.  Even in Alberta, Canada, where both substances are legal at age 18+.  It's almost like age limits don't really matter when it comes to secular trends.  Because they really don't matter:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-alcohol-cannabis-trends-1.7582982

Redditors also sum it up pretty well anecdotally, especially in regards to the younger generation:

https://www.reddit.com/r/alberta/comments/1m5jufa/albertans_drinking_way_less_booze_than_they_used/

Now, it's not entirely a result of cannabis legalization and increased popularity that alcohol consumption has been on the decline.  The latter trend has been observed practically everywhere in the world in recent years, and is at least in part driven by increasing health concerns in regards to alcohol, as well as more people preferring to socialize online instead of IRL. But one still cannot dismiss the partial substitution effects as well.

When Cannabis Advances, Alcohol Retreats (Again)

Yet another study adds to the growing body of evidence that cannabis and alcohol are at least partial substitutes.  When cannabis advances, alcohol tends to retreat, as seen in many studies.  That seems to be true both in Canada (18 or 19 depending on the province for both, except 21 in Quebec), and in the USA (21 for both, and cannabis legal only in some states).

The ONE Thing We Agree With The Late Charlie Kirk On

There is indeed ONE thing we fully agree with the late Charlie Kirk on.  Care to guess what it is?

(Hint:  it is quite literally the very founding cornerstone of Twenty-One Debunked indeed.)

Give up?  

Well, the following tweet from him from 2018 says it all:

AMEN to that!  And we are not aware that he has ever officially reversed or repudiated that stance, even after he recently quit drinking completely himself.

A stopped clock can indeed be right twice a day.

Actually, there is one more thing we agree with him on as well:

For the EPSTEINTH time, RELEASE THE FILES!

(Mic drop)

What If We Have Gotten "Age At First Use" All Wrong?

What if we (as a society) have gotten "age at first use" all wrong in regards to addiction?  The conventional wisdom is that the younger a person is when first trying a given substance (whether it's alcohol, tobacco/nicotine, cannabis, or otherwise), the more likely that person is to become addicted or dependent on that substance, and the more severe the problem they will develop, all else being equal.  This idea is often paired with the controversial (and half-baked at best) "gateway drug theory", namely that the use of lesser substances (alcohol, tobacco, and especially cannabis) increases the risk for subsequent use and/or addiction to other, harder substances.  But while the "gateway theory" is relatively easy to debunk, the "age at first use" theory has had much more staying power to date, mainly due to the fairly strong, and seemingly rugged and robust, correlational evidence, often combined with relatively superficial knowledge of human brain development.

However, a new study (albeit not exactly a new idea) strongly implies that at least much of the observed association between earlier age at first use and greater likelihood of addiction is actually due to reverse causation.  That is, kids who were at greater risk of addiction actually showed measurable brain differences compared to those who weren't, even before they took their first sip or puff.  This is truly a paradigm-shifting study indeed, and one that will require everyone to fundamentally rethink their approaches to substance abuse prevention.

That is NOT to say that using substances at an early age (especially before 15) is actually a wise idea, of course.  It still appears to be at least somewhat riskier overall, and the results of twin studies (which completely control for genetics, and largely control for environment) of the past still have yet to be completely explained away.  (For the record, Twenty-One Debunked does NOT endorse or encourage the underage use of any such substances.)  But this latest study shows that the reality is far more nuanced than meets the eye, and that "delay, delay, delay that first drink or use at any cost!" is also probably not the wisest approach to prevention either.  And, of course, by implication, the 21 drinking age (and smoking age and toking age) now has even less support still from The Science.

(We should also note also that people who actually do wait until 21 or older to use such substances, especially alcohol, tend not to be very gung-ho about such substances to begin with, and thus tend to be non-drinkers, non-smokers, and non-users.  That is true for both age at first use, as well as age at first regular use.  It's basically tautological.)

Perhaps this why Denmark and Iceland, who each famously take diametrically opposite approaches to teen drinking (i.e. very permissive vs. very restrictive, respectively), still ultimately end up with remarkably similar alcoholism rates among adults.  Just like the USA vs Canada, basically.

Why Is The 21 Drinking Age So Sacred?

Few laws are as uniquely sacred in the USA today as the 21 drinking age laws.  They are essentially a "third rail" of politics, even more so than Social Security.  And yet these laws are widely disobeyed by the vast majority of Americans at some point in their lives.  So what gives?

It clearly cannot be about saving lives, because speed limits would be even more of a matter of life and death, and yet those are never treated even remotely as sacred as the 21 drinking age.  They are openly flouted and scoffed at by most people, and the penalties and enforcement are pretty lax to this day.  The erstwhile national 55 speed limit was in fact mercilessly mocked and gradually weakened until it was ultimately jettisoned in the 1990s despite (ultimately quite accurate) warnings of "blood on the highways".  And even worse, speed limits on other streets, roads, and especially "stroads" have been raised higher as well, with very deadly consequences, and a fortiori for pedestrians and cyclists (hey, remember them?).  Speed kills, even more so than drunk driving these days, and yet, as one commenter noted, we don't have "Mothers Against Fast Driving", we have the Speed Channel instead.  Likewise, distracted driving, especially by smartphones, is at an all-time high, and people just cavalierly LOL it off for the most part.

(It's all fun and games, until they crash right into a kid on a bike, who is killed or maimed.  Not so funny now, is it?)

And even for drunk driving, the current (generous by international standards) blood alcohol limit of 0.08% for people over 21, let alone lowering it to 0.05% (except in Utah), seems to have far less popular support than the 21 drinking age or zero-tolerance laws for people under 21.  

And also, when they cut the federal alcohol taxes in 2018, ostensibly to boost the economy, there were few voices against it, and even those voices were far more muffled than to they would have been if they had had the temerity to (gasp!) even partially repeal the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.  So the drinking age is not even entirely about alcohol per se then, even if there is clearly some neo-prohibitionist impulse involved as well.

Thus, we can conclude that the 21 drinking age is really about power and control, along with an irrational fear of young people.  Which of course dovetails with being comparatively lax with the privileged age group that is currently in power, as tyranny is always whimsical.  And now the proverbial emperor is naked for all to see.

The Journey-Destination Problem

What we call the "journey-destination problem" is the fact that journeys are often much more dangerous than destinations.  For example, there is the fear that lowering the drinking age to 18 would, even if better overall in the long run, would still have adverse unintended consequences in the short run.  And we at Twenty-One Debunked address that fear head-on in our proposal to lower the drinking age to 18.

First and foremost, lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 (in line with the rest of the world, and a good chunk of American history) is NOT a radical change at all.  So any (real or imagined) fears related to lowering it even further below 18, or abolishing the age limit altogether, do NOT apply to lowering it to 18.

Secondly, it is NOT like the (real or imagined) fears of suddenly legalizing something that was previously completely illegal for everyone.  Alcohol in its various forms has been broadly legal, tolerated, and openly advertised for most of recorded history.  It is the "devil we already know", basically.   So "same as before, but without the arrests or injustices" is actually pretty close to accurate here.

Thirdly, simple and practical things like raising the alcohol taxes and cracking down harder on drunk driving, drunk violence, drunk and disorderly conduct, and stuff like that, would basically render any feared unintended consequences academic in practice. This is true whether the drinking age is lowered to 18 gradually OR suddenly.

Fourthly, it's not the 1970s or 1980s anymore.  America is almost a completely different country now in so many ways, including for drunk driving.  The original, albeit still fatally flawed, crisis-based justification for coercively raising the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s is itself grossly outdated and basically academic now in the 21st century, hence the need for the pro-21 crowd to invent new, ever more specious and spurious justifications (such as junk neuroscience, and a perversion of the precautionary principle) for keeping it at 21, because reasons.

And finally, it is ultimately a matter of principle, as it is fundamentally a civil rights issue, far more so than it is a public health and safety issue.  Not everything can be reduced to crude utilitarianism, after all.  "Let us do evil, that good may come" is always and everywhere a trap, a lesson that is unfortunately too often learned the hard way.

(Mic drop)

America Is Still Drowning In The Bottle

Americans are still drowning in the bottle to this day, and paying a heavy price for it.  While the pandemic and especially the lockdowns were clearly gasoline on the fire, that fire has been burning for a very long time before that.  The ageist abomination that is 21 drinking age, and all of its illiberal ancillary laws, has clearly done NOTHING to stem that tide in the long run.  And it's truly no coincidence that alcohol (of all types, but especially hard liquor) is now the cheapest it has been in many, many decades relative to inflation and (especially) income.  That's largely because alcohol taxes have greatly lagged behind and were thus eroded by inflation in recent decades, with the tax on distilled spirits lagging the very most of all.

To quote the latest CDC report on the matter:

Average annual number of deaths from excessive alcohol use, including partially and fully alcohol-attributable conditions, increased approximately 29% from 137,927 during 2016–2017 to 178,307 during 2020–2021, and age-standardized death rates increased from approximately 38 to 48 per 100,000 population. During this time, deaths from excessive drinking among males increased approximately 27%, from 94,362 per year to 119,606, and among females increased approximately 35%, from 43,565 per year to 58,701.

Thus, as Twenty-One Debunked has long advocated, we need to raise the alcohol taxes across the board, and harmonize them all based on alcohol content.  To raise just the beer tax alone, for example, would result in drinkers simply switching to liquor, similar to how minimum unit pricing in Scotland disproportionately affected strong cider and perversely incentivized switching to liquor.  MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) has long heavily beaten the drum (though not so much recently) for raising the beer tax, but has also largely been strangely silent on the distilled spirits tax.  Perhaps some alleged palm-greasing from both the liquor industry and/or foreign beer industry may be at work here?  Things that (should) make you go, hmmmm.....

We advocate raising all federal alcohol taxes to about $30 per proof-gallon, equal to the inflation-adjusted value for the distilled spirits tax in 1991 (in 2023 dollars), the last time it was raised. That would add anywhere between one and two dollars (depending on alcohol content), to the price of a six-pack of beer, a gallon of wine, or a fifth of liquor, while also incentivizing reduced-alcohol beers and wines.  And while that may not be very much of a difference to a moderate drinker, for heavy drinkers it sure adds up, as it also does for the youngest drinkers as well.  And contrary to what some believe, the price elasticity of demand for alcohol is NOT zero or trivial, and the public health benefits of higher alcohol taxes and prices are well-known and established.

To sweeten the deal, we support a relatively reduced tax rate for the smallest producers, and we also support tax incentives for producers who fortify their beverages with thiamine (vitamin B1) and perhaps other vitamins as well.  And we would also support phasing in alcohol tax hikes a bit more gradually if that is the only way to get them passed.  But raise these taxes, we certainly must.

(And, of course, we also also lower the drinking age to 18 yesterday, full stop.  We are still Twenty-One Debunked, after all.)

It is true that Thomas Jefferson once famously said, "no nation is drunken where wine is cheap".  Granted.  But the second half of that very same quote was, "and none sober when the dearness [expensiveness] of wine substitutes ardent [distilled] spirits as the common beverage.  It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey."  And now in 2024, it would seem that ALL categories of alcoholic beverages are too cheap for America's own good, and a fortiori for ardent (distilled) spirits today.

America Is Still Drowning In The Bottle

Americans are still drowning in the bottle to this day.  While the pandemic and especially the lockdowns were gasoline on the fire, that fire has been burning for a very long time before that.  The ageist abomination that is 21 drinking age, and all of its illiberal ancillary laws, has clearly done NOTHING to stem that tide in the long run.  And it's truly no coincidence that alcohol (of all types, but especially hard liquor) is now the cheapest it has been in many, many decades relative to inflation and (especially) income.  That's largely because alcohol taxes have greatly lagged behind and were thus eroded by inflation in recent decades, with the tax on distilled spirits lagging the most of all.

Thus, as Twenty-One Debunked has long advocated, we need to raise the alcohol taxes across the board, and harmonize them all based on alcohol content.  To raise just the beer tax alone, for example, would result in drinkers simply switching to liquor, similar to how minimum unit pricing in Scotland disproportionately affected strong cider and perversely incentivized switching to liquor.  MADD has long heavily beaten the drum (though not so much recently) for raising the beer tax, but has also largely been strangely silent on the distilled spirits tax.  Perhaps some alleged palm-greasing from both the liquor industry and/or foreign beer industry may be at work here?  Things that (should) make you go, hmmmm.....

We advocate raising all federal alcohol taxes to about $30 per proof-gallon, equal to the inflation-adjusted value for the distilled spirits tax in 1991, the last time it was raised. That would add anywhere between one and two dollars (depending on alcohol content), to the price of a six-pack of beer, a gallon of wine, or a fifth of liquor, while also incentivizing reduced-alcohol beers and wines.  And while that may not be very much of a difference to a moderate drinker, for heavy drinkers it sure adds up, as it also does for the youngest drinkers as well.  And contrary to what some believe, the price elasticity of demand for alcohol is NOT zero or trivial, and the public health benefits of higher alcohol taxes and prices are well-known and established.

To sweeten the deal, we support a relatively reduced tax rate for the smallest producers, and we also support tax incentives for producers who fortify their beverages with thiamine (vitamin B1) and perhaps other vitamins as well.  And we would also support phasing in alcohol tax hikes a bit more gradually if that is the only way to get them passed.  But raise these taxes, we must.

(And, of course, we also also lower the drinking age to 18 yesterday, full stop.  We are still Twenty-One Debunked, after all.)

It is true that Thomas Jefferson once famously said, "no nation is drunken where wine is cheap".  Granted.  But the second half of that very same quote was, "and none sober when the dearness [expensiveness] of wine substitutes ardent [distilled] spirits as the common beverage.  It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey."  And now in 2024, it would seem that ALL categories of alcoholic beverages are too cheap for America's own good, and a fortiori for ardent (distilled) spirits today.

Lithuania Study Finds Raising Drinking Age Did Not Save Lives After All

Lest anyone speciously claim that Lithuania's raising of the their drinking age from 18 to 20 effective January 1, 2018 somehow saved lives, keep in mind that in 2017 they also greatly raised their alcohol taxes, banned alcohol advertising, and greatly cut trading hours for alcohol sales in 2018.  So once again, we see a great deal of confounding here.  

In fact, one recent study found that once such confounders were adjusted for, any supposed lifesaving effect of the drinking age hike itself on 18-19 year olds disappeared, implying that it was a spurious effect.  The study looked at all-cause deaths, which is probably the most bias-free measurement of the "final bill".  And the drop in deaths was actually larger in 20-21 year olds (who were already too old to have been affected at that time*) than for 18-19 year olds or 15-17 year olds. Relative to the former group, the effect was null, and interestingly no "trickle-down" effect was observed for 15-17 year olds either.  And controlling for alcohol taxes and GDP also rendered the net effect null as well.

Thus, raising the drinking age any higher than 18 is very unlikely to save lives on balance.  But raising alcohol taxes, etc. is very likely to do so, for all ages.

QED

*NOTE:  If many years of post-hike data were observed, it would probably have been better to use a slightly older age group (e.g. 22-23, 23-24, or 24-25 year olds) instead as the control group, since previous studies have found that mortality is often shifted to the age group just above the new drinking age.  However, since just one year of post-hike data was included, the choice of control group remains largely appropriate for such short-term effects, and in any case the relative results were in the "wrong" direction even if mortality were displaced as such.

About That Finland Study

This year, a new study came out in The Lancet that looked at the long-term differences in alcohol-related morbidity and mortality between birth cohorts in Finland that either were or were exposed to the lowering of their legal drinking age from 21 to 18 on January 1, 1969.  That is, based on how old they were when the drinking age was changed.  The study and its interpretation had a clear pro-21 bias. 

While the results did show that, exposed cohorts did have higher morbidity and mortality later in life relative to the unexposed cohorts, the results were ultimately inconclusive since several other changes happened at the same time. For example, the lowering of the drinking age occurred in tandem with other alcohol liberalization policies (in a previously very stringent policy regime with fairly low alcohol consumption) that greatly increased alcohol availability in general and thus consumption in a short period of time.  Urbanization also increased rapidly as well.  Culture changes (especially of the drinking culture) also inevitably occurred as well against a backdrop of increasing general alcohol consumption, and those who came of age during or right after the change would logically have been more affected than those who already came of age just before it, regardless of the legal age limit.  So teasing out the specific effects of the legal drinking age change is really practically impossible in this case.

A cursory reading of the Wikipedia article about Finnish drinking culture will tell you all you need to know about why the age limit is largely irrelevant.

Previous studies on the very long-term effects of the 21 drinking age in the USA and elsewhere have been very scarce and ultimately inconclusive at best as well.  (At least one Swedish study seems to suggest a null effect though.)  And this new Finland study, quite frankly, adds very little.  Causation can thus neither be confirmed nor ruled out, in other words.

Regardless, in any case, even if it were partly causal, using a study like this to justify the ageist abomination that is the 21 drinking age is mission creep at best, and grasping at straws at worst, given that the original justifications for it are either debunked, obsolete, or both.  The idea that some vague conception of "public health", especially theoretically in the distant future, somehow trumps civil rights (and selectively for only one demographic group, no less) is the very worst of utilitarianism and health fascism, and has no place in a free society.

And as long as we are on the subject of Finland, that same country has also since shown us what can be done to rapidly decrease alcohol-related mortality and morbidity at very little cost to society at large and without trampling civil rights:  raising the tax/price of alcohol.  Even the pro-21 crowd, including the authors of the aforementioned study, seem to be willing to concede that.  But apparently that doesn't satisfy the ageists' desire for power and control.  Their libido dominandi seems to know no bounds in that regard.

QED

UPDATE:  And while we are at it, lest anyone speciously claim that Lithuania's raising of the their drinking age from 18 to 20 effective January 1, 2018 somehow saved lives, keep in mind that in 2017 they also greatly raised their alcohol taxes, banned alcohol advertising, and greatly cut trading hours for alcohol sales in 2018.  So once again, we see confounding.  In fact, one study found that once such confounders were adjusted for, any supposed lifesaving effect of the drinking age hike on 18-19 year olds disappeared, implying that it was a spurious effect.

See also a recent 2025 study about Finland as well.

If The 21 Drinking Age Really Saves Lives In The Long Run, Then Explain This

Sometimes the truth is literally hiding in plain sight.  A good, bias-free way to examine the supposed lifesaving effects of a policy would be to look at excess all-cause mortality or its inverse, life expectancy.  That gives a clear picture of the "final bill" of net effects, regardless of the "why" behind it.

For example, a recent article notes how life expectancy in the USA has lagged behind that of practically every comparable country in the world, in both absolute AND relative terms.  America is clearly an outlier, and not in a good way, despite being the richest and most powerful country on Earth.  

So what gives?

Is it Covid?  The collateral damage from lockdowns?  Or the vaccines?  While things clearly deteriorated further during the pandemic, and especially after the vaccines were introduced, the diverging trend in life expectancy began well before that.  

Is it fentanyl, or the opioid crisis more generally?  That's a big part of it, and something you really don't see nearly as bad anywhere else in the world, but the trend pre-dates even that by quite a while.

Is it illicit drugs in general?  Partly, but those "epidemics" ebbed and flowed repeatedly while the divergence continued regardless.

Is it tobacco? Well, as deadly as it is, given how Americans generally smoke less than Europeans, and always have, that cannot be a significant reason for the divergence. 

Is it obesity?  Partly, but several other countries are also catching up to us in that regard, so that only explains a fraction of it.  (And why are we so fat in the first place?)

Is it poverty?  Lack of healthcare?  Inequality?  Or any other adverse effect of neoliberalism?  Very likely at least part of it. After all, the American life expectancy began diverging from peer countries in the early 1980s during the "Reagan Revolution".  Before that, it was well within the normal range of wealthy countries.  But not even the UK under Margaret Thatcher could deteriorate quite like we did.

Is it guns?  Partly, but again that only explains a fraction of the trend, and there were already plenty of guns in the USA well before the divergence.

Is it traffic deaths?  Getting even warmer.  Traffic safety has clearly lagged behind the rest of the developed world indeed, and it's not only because we have more cars either.

Or is it perhaps the pink elephant in the room?  That is, Americans drowning themselves in the bottom of the bottle?  Yes, and we are paying a heavy price for it:  alcohol is indeed one of the largest contributors, that actually kills more Americans than opioids and all illicit drugs combined.  Let that sink in. 

Along with suicide and drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths are in fact one of the most common types of "deaths of despair" in this country.

So to those who support the 21 drinking age, riddle me this:  if your beloved policy saved so many lives on balance like you claim, why did America's life expectancy lag behind all of our peer countries that generally did NOT raise their drinking ages any higher than 18?  And why are alcohol and traffic deaths such large contributors to the divergence?

Take as long as you like with your answer.

And bonus points for those who loudly cry "think of the children!" when it comes to public policies they dislike, and are still able to somehow explain why American infant and child mortality is so much worse than peer countries as well.

(Mic drop)

UPDATE:  But don't European countries supposedly have higher liver cirrhosis death rates than the USA?  Well, some do, but many countries are the same or lower.  The UK, for example, used to be higher, but by 2016 it was lower.  Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also have lower cirrhosis death rates as well.

Don't Ban Alcohol. Tax It Instead, And Restrict Quantities.

South Africa has had the dubious distinction of being the only country in the (non-Muslim) world to ban all alcohol sales during their coronavirus lockdown.  They recently lifted that ban.

To be clear, Twenty-One Debunked does NOT support such a thing at all, as it is excessive and overbroad.  We also don't support general lockdowns either, given that they are also of dubious effectiveness and fly directly in the face of a supposedly free society and its Constitution.  But it is true nonetheless that alcohol abuse (and alcohol-related domestic violence and child abuse) is a problem in nearly all lockdown countries regardless, and large gatherings are of course a very big no-no during the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.  Now is clearly NOT the time to throw a kegger!  Thus, we support the following done in the USA for the remaining duration of the pandemic, which we define as at until least 30 days after the number of new cases reaches and remains at zero, or for 90 days total, whichever is longer:

• Raise the taxes on alcohol, dramatically.
• Maintain and enforce a ban on non-essential gatherings of 500 people or more, with perhaps a lower, double-digit limit on indoor gatherings specifically (since those are riskier).
• Ban the sale of kegs to anyone who is not a licensed bar or restaurant owner.
• Put a cap on the amount of alcohol an individual can purchase per person per day, such as no more than one case or 30-pack of beer, one gallon of wine, or two liters of hard alcohol less than or equal to 100 proof or one liter of hard alcohol greater than 100 proof.
• Reopen bars and restaurants with "Swedish rules" for the first couple of weeks:  restrict occupancy, table service only, outdoor seating preferred, no eating or drinking perpendicular (standing up).  Delay the reopening of nightclubs and casinos until a few weeks after bars reopen.
• For the first couple of weeks, require restaurant and bar staff to wear masks, and patrons to wear masks while not eating or drinking.
• Crack down heavily on drunk driving, drunk violence, and domestic and child abuse.
• Put a moratorium on enforcement of the 21 drinking age for any 18-20 year olds who are drinking responsibly and following such protocols above.  (Of course, the drinking age should be lowered to 18 yesterday.)

So what are we waiting for?

What If We Can't Lower The Drinking Age Anytime Soon? (Re-Post)

Perish the thought, but it looks like the utterly vile and ageist abomination that is the 21 drinking age will not be lowered to 18 (or even lowered at all) anytime soon.  It's plain to see that the movement to lower it has completely run out of momentum by now, and the movement to raise the smoking/vaping age to 21 has unfortunately only gained momentum in recent years, and with no signs of stopping.  In fact, the federal government recently raised the federal tobacco/vaping purchase age to 21.  And while the cannabis legalization movement still has enough momentum, unfortunately all US states (though not Canada) that have chosen to legalize it so far have chosen 21 as their legal toking age.

Does that mean our movement is dead, never to rise again?  Of course not, but our movement is in a sort of "dark night of the soul", apparently, and a very long one too.  Depressing as it sounds, we must realize that it is always darkest before the dawn, and we must redouble our efforts to tackle the 21 drinking age while the country is hopelessly distracted by tobacco and especially vaping these days.

One bright spot among recent trends is the increasing tendency towards criminal justice reform.  We may be able to use that to our advantage, in fact.  If we can't lower the drinking age right away, we can at least reduce the harm by decriminalizing underage drinking (and smoking and toking), reducing it to a mere infraction (ticket) offense (if there are to even be any penalties at all) without any arrests, criminal penalties, or criminal record, bypassing the criminal justice system entirely.  Some states, such as New York and DC, already have that in place for alcohol, while many other states are still quite draconian by comparison.  We should also seize upon the trend towards reducing or eliminating driver's license sanctions for non-driving related offenses, and apply that to underage drinking (and smoking and toking) as well.  We should re-prioritize law enforcement resources towards retail sellers rather than young buyers and users, and make "underage" drinking (and smoking and toking) by 18-20 year olds the lowest law enforcement priority.  And of course, in our zeal to lower the drinking age to 18, we must not throw people under 18 under the bus in the name of cowardly political expendiency in that regard either.

And of course, we need to prioritize cracking down on drunk driving, drunk violence, drunk vandalism, rape and sexual assault, and other serious stuff like that at ANY age, not the mere victimless "crime" of responsible drinking by 18-20 year old young adults.

So what are we waiting for?

The Kids Are Still (Mostly) Alright in 2019

The latest 2019 Montoring the Future survey results are in.  And while the mainstream media are hyping this year's significant increase in teen vaping (of both nicotine and cannabis), they seem to be glossing over the good news.  For example, teen alcohol and (combustible) tobacco use have both plummeted to record lows, prescription drug abuse (especially opioids and amphetamines) is way down (in contrast to adults), and nearly all other substances (even heroin, again unlike adults) have held steady this year at relatively low levels compared with previous decades.  The one notable exception is LSD (acid), which showed a modest increase this year, but still remains far lower than it was before 2000.

Even cannabis use in general held steady overall this year, and while "daily" (i.e. 20+ days/month) use did see a modest increase this year for grades 8 and 10, in grade 8 it was no higher than it was in 2011 (prior to recreational legalization in any state) and is still quite low.  And keep in mind that for grades 8 and 10, data only go back to 1991, unlike grade 12 which goes all the way back to 1975. Thus, one can extrapolate based on grade 12 data that "daily" use for grades 8 and 10 are also both most likely far lower than they were in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as we know to be the case for grade 12.  And actual, true daily use (i.e. literally every day) is likely even lower still as well.

Even the vaping data are a bit outdated now, since the MTF survey was taken in the spring of 2019, at least several weeks or months before the new "mystery" vaping illness (now called EVALI) outbreak was suddenly announced during the summer.  Since then, the widespread fear of this scary but fortunately now-waning epidemic has likely reduced the popularity of vaping in general, so next year's data will likely be significantly lower than it was in early 2019.

Additionally, the data from another survey, the NSDUH, show that past-year and past-month cannabis use in general has been stable or declining for years for 12-17 year olds nationwide, even as it has been modestly and steadily rising for both 18-25 and 26+ year olds in recent years, and as it has become increasingly legal and socially acceptable to use cannabis and admit to doing so.  The same survey also finds that rates of cannabis use disorder (i.e. abuse/dependence) have been steadily declining for 12-17 year olds since the pre-legalization era, and have been relatively stable for 18-25 (undulating plateau) and 26+ year olds (flat) overall since 2002.

But don't expect the fearmongering mainstream media to tell you that, of course.

A Generation of Sociopaths?

Are Baby Boomers (i.e. the generation born between 1946-1964) really a generation of sociopaths and/or narcissists?  That is in fact the conclusion of a controversial new book by Bruce Gibney, titled A Generation of Sociopaths.  And while we at Twenty-One Debunked are really not fond of condescending broad generalizations about any generation, there does seem to be at least a kernel of truth to his thesis, and it is nonetheless a breath of fresh air to have a book that at least doesn't glibly vilify Millennials and/or Gen Z like so many do nowadays.

According to Gibney, himself a member of Gen X, traits associated with antisocial personality disorder and narcissism do seem to be more prevalent in Boomers compared to any generation before or since.  And the hard data pertaining to behaviors associated with such traits, especially crime rates and substance abuse, do indeed seem to bear this thesis out rather nicely, as do the voting records of that generation.  Reagan, both Bushes, Bill Clinton, and especially Trump could never have been elected without the Boomers voting for them in large numbers.  These candidates all basically promised Boomers (especially white, middle class ones) the moon while asking essentially nothing of them in return, and no price was too high as long as someone else (i.e. future generations) paid for it.  And all of these candidates, to one degree or another, did serious damage to our country--economically, socially, and ecologically.

Granted, "not ALL Boomers" are like that.  But enough of them are to be a problem, and more so than any other generation.  Sound familiar?  It really should.

The real question here is WHY this generation who had so many advantages in terms of wealth and power turned out the way that they are.  Gibney, predictably, blames "permissive parenting" and the fact that they were the first generation raised with television.  True, as the Dr. Spock generation they (mainly white, middle-class Boomers) were raised more permissively than previous generations, and likely more so than subsequent generations in at least some ways.  The mid to late 1970s could indeed be considered a time of "peak permissiveness" in terms of both parenting practices and public policy, and such trends towards permissiveness indeed began from about 1945 onward.   No doubt about that.

But stating such time-series correlations does NOT actually establish causation.  Another factor, overlooked by Gibney, explains Boomer (and early Gen X) traits, behaviors, and statistics far more than anything else:  preschool lead poisoning from leaded gasoline and paint.   Leaded gasoline begain being used in the 1930s, and after WWII, gasoline consumption (and thus lead pollution) increased dramatically until the 1973-1974 oil crisis and the phaseout of leaded gasoline beginning in 1976.  Lead paint, which was banned completely in 1978, had already been phased down in decades prior, but lingers in older housing stock.  Thus, the first permissively-raised generation and the first televison-raised generation and the wealthiest generation in history and the most heavily lead-poisoned generation in history are all in fact one and the same.

And unlike the specious correlations with parental permissiveness and screen time, the correlation with early lead poisoning (a known nasty neurotoxin) and various traits and behaviors that can be described as sociopathic (or at least poor impulse control) is undeniable and meets all of the Bradford-Hills criteria of causation.  As researcher Rick Nevin notes, relationship between preschool lead exposure and such adverse later outcomes as major and minor crime, juvenile delinquency, unwed/early pregnancy, and stuff like that remains highly robust across studies numerous time periods, nations, cultures, and functional forms.  And while white, suburban and rural, middle-class Boomers were arguably much less affected by such lead poisoning than their poorer, urban, black, and/or Latino counterparts in terms of lead poisoning, that doesn't mean that they were completely unaffected by it, since there was still plenty of lead to go around everywhere.  The difference was really one of degree, not kind.

Fortunately, thanks to the phaseout of leaded gasoline and paint, newer housing stocks, and reduction of lead emissions from incinerators, lead poisoning in children today is now at the lowest level in at least a century.   But there is still much work to be done.  There is plenty of old housing stock with deteriorating lead paint, and there is still too much lead in the drinking water of many communities across the country.  According to Nevin, replacing old windows in old housing with new, double-glazed, energy-saving windows, along with stablilizing currently deteriorating old lead paint on walls, would be "low-hanging fruit" in terms of lead abatement that would more than pay for itself in the long run.  As for drinking water, replacing the older service lines would be expensive and time consuming (though still worth doing nonetheless), but in the meantime we could stop adding fluoride yesterday (which is not only neurotoxic in its own right, but potentiates the neurotoxicity of lead and increases lead corrosion and leaching from pipes) and perhaps use ozone instead of chlorine (which also leaches lead) for disinfection of the drinking water supply.

And while many of the Boomer-induced problems left for future generations are indeed real, we should also note that Gibney's fretting about the national debt and Social Security's supposedly impending insolvency is misplaced since these things are really non-problems for a Monetarily Sovereign government like our own federal government.  It is in fact a Big Lie that federal taxes actually pay for federal spending and that the federal government can somehow run short on dollars.  And that big, scary number that is our so-called "national debt" is not debt in the usual sense of the term but rather more like a national savings account.  Author Rodger Malcolm Mitchell, himself a member of the Silent Generation, would have some choice words for authors like Gibney in that regard.  But that is a topic for another discussion.

So perhaps what is really needed here, instead of vilification of an entire generation, is that crucial trait that sociopaths and narcissists lack:  empathy.

The Public Health Crisis That Wasn't

One of our favorite journalists, Annie Lowrey, recently wrote an article titled, "America's Invisible Pot Addicts".  While she is clearly no friend of cannabis prohibition and in fact has repeatedly gone on the record supporting legalization, in this article the author addresses head-on the issue that many (but not all) legalization advocates have heretofore been loath to discuss at all:  cannabis addiction and its apparently growing trend in this country.

As she quotes various self-styled experts on the matter, we seem to get several different answers on the size of the problem and especially how to handle it.  But some facts are undeniable regardless of who says them:

• Some people can indeed become dependent on cannabis, to one degree or another.  And while cannabis is significantly less addictive than alcohol, tobacco, hard drugs, prescription painkillers and sedatives, and even caffeine, it can still become quite habit-forming when used too frequently and heavily.
• While cannabis addiction is usually not as severe as most other addictions, it can be for some people.  Cannabis may be relatively harmless for most of its users, but that does not make it completely safe for everyone.  Some may find that it can have quite a dark side when seriously abused.
• Since the early to mid-1990s and especially since the early 2000s, rates of "cannabis use disorder" (abuse, dependence, or both) as defined by DSM-IV criteria have increased markedly, as have the percentage of daily or near-daily (DND) users of cannabis (about half of whom are dependent).
• While some of those who technically meet DSM-IV criteria for abuse or dependence are pseudoaddicts or an artifact of social stigma and prohibition, others are indeed genuine addicts, and the exact proportion is not entirely clear.
• Likewise, many DND users are truly medical or quasi-medical users, but many are clearly not.
• These trends in heavy and/or dependent use began long before recreational legalization and even before medical legalization in most states, and there is no unambiguously prospective link between legalization and such trends.
• These trends have occurred primarily among adults rather than teenagers.
• Regardless, none of the above facts constitute a real public health crisis at this time, and all of this truly pales in comparison to the opioid epidemic as well as the "pink elephant in the room" that is America's alcohol problem.

So yes, Virginia, there really is a "there", there, but contrary to what some commentators may fear, it is unlikely that legalization is really anything to fear in terms of making it worse.  After all, prohibition clearly couldn't stop it from rising over the past quarter-century.  And us legalization advocates would do wise to stop the denials and face the problem head-on, without fear that it would weaken our movement one bit.  Do not fall into the trap of ceding the moral high ground to the anti- side.  At the same time, we must also tackle head-on the "tyranny of the weaker brother" that really has no place in a free society.

The message really needs to be that spending the majority of one's waking hours under the influence of any psychoactive substance is probably not a wise idea, unless of course one truly needs it for medical reasons.   Saying that cannabis is the safer choice is NOT the same as saying that it is absolutely safe for everyone.  Besides, when you are stoned all the time, it basically loses its fun eventually, and isn't the whole point of recreational use by definition to have fun in the first place?  As Dr. Andrew Weil notes, if it stops being fun or effective, the worst thing one can do is smoke even more weed or seek out stronger strains.  And if you're at the point where you can't even enjoy video games without being stoned, that is definitely a warning sign that you need to at least take a break or cut back significantly, if not quit completely.

It is utterly important to first name and define the problem before discussing it further, to avoid inadvertently reinforcing the lies and half-truths on either side of the debate. We are talking about problematic, chronic, heavy, very heavy, and ultra-heavy use of cannabis here, at ANY age.  We are NOT talking about casual use, use per se by people below some arbitrarily high age limit, or about the roundly debunked "gateway theory" either.   Toking up, say,  once a week (or less) is really NOT the problem here, it's more like toking up every day or nearly so, especially multiple times a day, and/or in very large quantities, that is the real problem.  And while slopes may be slipperier than they appear as one approaches heavier and heavier use, the vast majority of cannabis users still do NOT become chronic heavy users.  And among those who do, it doesn't usually last very long, though for some it unfortunately does.

Likewise, while there currently is no hard scientific evidence (and not for lack of trying to find it) that using cannabis at 18 is really any worse in practice than using it at 21, 25, or even 30 for that matter, there is nevertheless some evidence that using before 18 and especially before 15 may indeed be riskier overall, both in terms of potential harm as well as addiction potential.  It is quite nuanced and the studies still need to be fleshed out, for sure.  But we should note that the aforementioned chronic, heavy users that represent the real problem typically started toking before 15 and/or transitioned to heavy use before 18 as a rule.  And many, if not most, of those users have also used alcohol and/or tobacco at an early age as well, again especially before 15.

As for public policy within the framework of legalization, Lowrey notes that probably one of the best--if not the best--measures that policymakers can take is to raise the taxes on cannabis.  That would, by definition, hit the heaviest users the hardest, while casual users would barely even notice the resulting price hike.  Of course, it would be best to keep the taxes very low at first in order to destroy the black market, and then gradually but sharply raise them beginning a year or two after legal recreational sales begin in a given state.  Lowrey also notes other ideas as well, such as capping THC levels in products, dispensing public health information, and restricting advertising, which are likely good ideas.  But excise taxes, especially if they are proportional to THC content (and perhaps inversely proportional to CBD content as well), would probably have the largest effect size of all in terms of reducing cannabis-related problems.  As for the fear that higher cannabis taxes would drive users back to alcohol, well, we all know by now how to prevent that hypothetical from happening:  simply raise the taxes on alcohol as well.

In other words, freedom has nothing to fear from the truth.  That, and don't fear the reefer--but DO treat it with the respect it deserves nonetheless.

Latest 2017 MTF Survey Results

The results of the annual Monitoring the Future survey for 2017 are in.  And here is a brief summary of the results:

• Alcohol use in general as well as "binge" drinking among all three grades (8, 10, 12) remains at the same record-low levels as 2016.  
• Tobacco use overall in all grades continued its long decline to a new record low in 2017, particularly for cigarettes, though vaping (e-cigarettes) did increase slightly in 2017 after decreasing a bit in 2016.
• Cannabis use went up slightly in 2017 from 2016 after declining for several years, though generally still remains below 2012 levels, and of course far below the peaks in both 1979 and 1997.  This dovetails with another recent study of legalization states which found no significant increase in teen use post-legalization.
• Opioids, including heroin, remain at very low levels among teens, while the opioid epidemic continues largely unabated among adults.
• Inhalant use went up slightly among 8th graders after a long decline, though still remains at low levels.
• All other substances decreased or saw no significant change either way in 2017.

So what can we conclude from all of this?  First, we can conclude that cannabis legalization did not increase teen cannabis use as the fearmongers claimed it would. Nor did the use of other substances increase as the "gateway" theory would have predicted--in fact, most other substances decreased.   So much for that theory.  Second, it would appear that e-cigarette vaping is to some extent displacing cigarette smoking, rather than exerting a "gateway" effect as was often feared--smoking would have increased along with vaping if those fears were true, and in fact the opposite has occured instead.  Which any way you slice it, is ultimately a net win for public health even if vaping is not completely harmless.  In fact, the drop in cigarette smoking was much faster from 2013-2015 than it was in the years before or since, coinciding with the period of greatest increase in e-cigarette use.   And finally, we can conclude that the kids are (mostly) alright, at least compared to the many adults around them who continue to drink themselves to death and/or rot and rust in opioids.

How to Quash a Black Market in Five Easy Steps

A black market (or underground economy) typically occurs when the legitimate market for a particular good or service is either nonexistent, out of reach, or otherwise far too insufficient to meet the demand for that good or service.  Black markets are by definition illegal to one degree or another, while informal markets that are technically legal or quasi-legal are known as gray markets.   While the usual proximal cause for a black market is prohibition of a good or service (and thus no legitimate market existing), a black market can also occur (albeit to a much lesser extent) when the taxes and/or other government fees on or surrounding the product or activity are excessively high relative to what consumers are willing to pay (and relative to the informal economy).  Sometimes taxes can be so high so as to be considered "prohibition by price", though the relative price difference is typically far more important than the absolute price.

Twenty-One Debunked believes in raising alcohol taxes significantly in conjunction with lowering the drinking age to 18.  The level we suggest ($24/proof-gallon, equalized for all alcoholic beverages), though significantly higher than now, would still be too low to encourage a significant amount of moonshining and bootlegging.  But what about cannabis, which is currently being legalized in more and more states, many of which started out with fairly high taxes and/or licensing fees?  Though a positive development overall, in some of such places, the black market still exists to one degree or another, albeit much less so than when cannabis was illegal.  And of course we all know that places like NYC with extremely high cigarette taxes have their share of black markets in untaxed, out of state, counterfeit, and/or stolen cigarettes as well.  So how does one solve such a problem?

Enter Rear Admiral Luther E. Gregory.  In the 1930s, Prohibition was repealed, and Washington State along with other states were now faced with the task of shutting down the well-established bootleggers and speakeasies that persisted even after Repeal.   Admiral Gregory was asked to head the state's Liquor Control Board, and given carte blanche to come up with a solution, one which worked surprisingly well in fact:

1. End Prohibition, first of all.
2. Give amnesty and issue licenses to anyone willing to play by the state's rules, whether former bootleggers or otherwise.
3. Set the alcohol taxes as low as possible at first, the lowest in the country in fact.
4. Punish sellers who don't play by the rules, with an iron fist--i.e. blacklisting scofflaws from ever selling liquor in the state again.
5. After holding down alcohol taxes for three years, abruptly raise taxes to the point where they're now the highest in the nation.

Problem solved.  The legal market proved to be competitive with what was left of the black market, and drinkers preferred the former over the latter, driving the latter out of business.  And the black market never came back even after raising taxes dramatically.  Looking back, it should have been so obvious indeed.

Substitute "cannabis" for "alcohol", and there is no reason why this strategy would not work in this day and age.  And instead of holding down taxes for three years, merely one year should be sufficient to get the same results, even if the hike is automatically scheduled.  Doing so would minimize the greatest risk of the strategy, namely, that the fledgling legal cannabis industry would then become so powerful that they would resist and successfully quash any attempt to raise taxes in the future.  They would not become that powerful in just one year, and probably not for several years, but the black market could be easily quashed in that timeframe all the same.

As for cigarette taxes, both NYC and NYS should implement this strategy as well.  And of course, the low-tax states such as Virginia should also raise their cigarette taxes (within reason) so as to not be such a source state for cigarette smuggling to other states.  And of course, lower NYC's age limit back to 18 as well.  Same for cannabis in legalized states as well.

In fact, this strategy would work for just about any type of black market.  That's because it is based on the hard facts of economics, not half-baked wishful thinking.  Unlike prohibition or unrealistically high age limits, taxes are not a "blunt" policy instrument, but rather a razor-sharp, double-edged sword.

So what are we waiting for?